[Bug 9898] New: The Decision Policy (as applied) is ineffective at getting closure on ISSUEs

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9898

           Summary: The Decision Policy (as applied) is ineffective at
                    getting closure on ISSUEs
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: working group Decision Policy
        AssignedTo: dave.null@w3.org
        ReportedBy: hsivonen@iki.fi
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mjs@apple.com, Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com,
                    rubys@intertwingly.net, mike@w3.org


I gather an important point of the Decision Policy is to manage dissent by
establishing a due process for dealing with the dissent as opposed to having
permathreads of claims that a particular concern hasn't been duly considered by
the WG as a whole to go on indefinitely taking the attention of the WG
participants and interfering with productive work at the WG.

Before the current Decision Policy was put in place, the idea of soliciting
concrete proposals (now termed Change Proposals) was accompanied by a reference
to
http://bitworking.org/news/Camera_Ready_Copy_and_the_Social_Denial_of_Service_Attack
(See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jan/0385.html)

While pointing to
http://bitworking.org/news/Camera_Ready_Copy_and_the_Social_Denial_of_Service_Attack
doesn't explicitly say that a substantial reason for soliciting concrete
proposals is avoiding Social Denial of Service Attacks, I think it was
reasonable for readers of the 0385 email to infer that what later developed
into the Decision Process was supposed to limit behavior that would tie up the
finite attention of WG participants. I posit that this reasonable inference may
have played a substantial part in getting the WG to agree to a heavyweight
Decision Process. At least I thought that the end points of the Process were
supposed to be end points of attention-exhausting activities around a given
ISSUE.

Now that the Chairs have, on behalf of the WG, made their Decision on some
ISSUEs, I see almost *nothing but* emails about the subject matter of the
ISSUEs or about the fallout of the decisions coming from public-html.
Evidently, giving dissenters the benefit of due process didn't bring the ISSUEs
to closure. We have both attention-exhausting permathreads *and* a heavyweight
process. 

I think this is a sign of the Decision Process not working properly. It is
possible that this isn't a bug in the Decision Process document per se, but in
the application of the process. Emphasizing the a Decision applies "at this
time" is effectively an invitation to continue discussion instead of bringing
the ISSUEs to closure.

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Received on Thursday, 10 June 2010 07:52:19 UTC